So I guess that's what losing the Champions League feels like then.

At least we're still Premier League Champions.

There's just under 14 hours until the UEFA Champions League Final. Let's hope Arsenal can finally bring home the trophy. 🏆

Britain is typically a cold, wet, and gray place. But whenever the sun comes out, the country seems to come alive. The pub gardens are full, people are out having picnics, kids are out playing, and people generally are more upbeat.

But I have to say, the past week or so has killed me. I don't want to get into international comparisons, or try to claim how "intense" British heat is, but I've had to deal with ~30°c (>25°c indoors) heat for about a week, and with very inadequate fans as the only solution to combat our well insulated buildings.

I'm pretty sure I find it worse than most though, I wear t-shirt and shorts in 15°c. There's not much else I can do at 30°c.

Fountain pens aren't new to me. I used them in school when learning how to write, and then I later used them to write multiple page essays. But for whatever reason^[1], when I left school, I didn't use one again. Until very recently, when I purchased a Lamy Safari Fountain Pen ^[2].

I chose this pen because I wanted a reasonably priced fountain pen, that I could use in my daily life at work and at home. Whether it was taking notes during a meeting, sketching out a few writing ideas, or simply to remember things.

What I thought would be a simple upgrade from a typical ballpoint pen, turned out to be a little nudge toward being more intentional. Not just with what I write, but how.

When I use a ballpoint pen, it feels like I should write a quick scrappy note, something that shouldn't live for very long. When I type on a computer or a phone, it feels fast, efficient, but it can be so efficient, that there's no thought behind any of the words.

But pair a nice pen with a little notebook^[3], and it simply feels nice to write. In addition, my natural writing speed means there are little pauses built in, which means I tend to think more as I write.

The permanence of words on paper also has an effect. Not in an extreme perfectionist way. But that if I am spending the time to write something down, I want it to have some thought behind it, honesty, and if possible I want it to be good.

At the same time, it's also a fun experience trying to write neatly again. There's a sense of writing becoming a little "craft" in itself, rather than a means to an end.

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1. I want to place a general blame on society, but who knows. ↩︎

2. Sunset Pink, Medium 0.6mm nib. ↩︎

3. Such as a little Field Notes notebook. ↩ ↩︎

A week ago I wrote about wanting to cut down on phone usage. I kept that idea in my mind throughout the week, and tried to get an idea of what the problem was.

Just to give some raw data, my average screen time for the week before last was around 6 hours per day. This past week it's just under 4 and a half hours per day.

So you could say that's an improvement, and I guess it is. But last week was more about myself noticing trends, and seeing what I could do without any major effect, and just by reminding myself occasionally that scrolling for hours may not be the best use of my time.

I noticed that I have a few occasions where I feel I want to grab my phone:

• When I'm between tasks.
• On my commute.
• When I'm bored.
• When I'm procrastinating.

Essentially, I tend to use my phone to fill gaps in time.

As for what I do on my phone, here is the past week split by category. Including only those which I have spent over 30 mins in the whole week, and only the apps/websites that have reasonable usage

• Social - 9 hours. (X, Instagram, Messages, Threads, Mastodon...)
• Entertainment - 5 hours. (YouTube, Spotify...)
• Other - 3 hours. (Remote, Home...)
• Utilities - 2 hours (Work Chat...)
• Games - 2 hours.
• Productivity & Finance - 1.5 hours. (Mail, Claude...)

I thought about the idea of using my phone less over the week, and I realised that it's not the phone itself that I want to stop using. Because a phone isn't really just a phone, it's a handheld computer^[1]. It can be used for important and useful tasks, such as communication, reading, listening to music, taking photos, etc. You could also say it can be a tool for entertainment, e.g. watching videos, playing games, etc.

The problem I've noticed that I have myself in regards to my phone, is that a lot of the time there's no intention behind how I use it. When I'm at work and I need to wait for something to compile, tests to run, or I'm waiting on a response from an agent^[2], my phone—or social media—is the first thing my mind gravitates towards. I'm now wondering how much time I'm wasting simply with these short bursts of usage.

Additionally, I was a bit torn with my commute time. On the 3 days that I travel to the office, I spend just over 3 hours per day commuting. That consists of some walking, but mostly on a ~35 minute train into London, and a ~15 minute tube ride, both ways.

For those train journeys, I don't have a reliable network connection, and I rarely even get a seat. So what I can do on them is already limited. Right now I resort to music, simple games that can fill time, or maybe catching up on RSS or social media.

I don't want to be too harsh on myself and say that I can't use my phone during my commute, or get annoyed that for these days, my usage is higher. But there's definitely ways in which I can use this time better. I'm going to try and explore a few podcasts that interest me, or books that I can read.

Although, I'm going to potentially have a look at a few ebooks to start off with. I already have a lot of physical books that I want to read, and I've started a few of them. But I can never find a way to build a reading habit. Hopefully I can combine a few things together, and both make better use of my commute time, give me something to do on my phone that isn't scrolling social media, and also help build a reading habit.

All in all, it wasn't a week of big revelations, but I do have a next step of where I want to improve. Next week will be another one of trying to slowly start to use my phone in a more intentional way, and also stopping myself when I'm only getting my phone out to waste time.

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1. I've got a lot more thoughts on this that I may delve into in the future. ↩︎

2. Probably more on this soon as well. ↩︎

I've been reflecting on my favourite films, and I've come up with three:

• Perfect Days (2023)
• The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (2013)
• Seven Years in Tibet (1997)

Those are my three favourite individual films. But like most, there are many film series that I'm also fond of. Mine are:

• The Hobbit
• The Lord of the Rings
• Twilight
• Harry Potter

I would like to note that none of these are guilty pleasures.

I would also like to note that although these are mentioned as my favourite films, their respective book forms and soundtracks are also some of my favourites.

After realising my average phone screen time was 6 hours a day, I've decided I want to start using it less. Although, I don't have any specific goals in mind just yet.

First I will give myself a week to try and naturally use it less. Which I hope will help me detect where I usually reach for my phone, and also help me identify suitable replacements.

As a start that means X, Instagram, and Mail have been removed from my home screen. I've also added my bank card to my Apple Watch to avoid needing taking my phone out at the train station. And the next thing I want to do is to setup Spotify on my Watch so I can have one less reason to take my phone out of my pocket.

I'll share more updates here as the week progresses. Hopefully by the end of the week I would have both lowered my average screen time, and also identified a few areas that need some attention.

I've had a 14" M1 MacBook Pro for over 4 years now, and it's served me well since then. Apart from storage limitations (500 GB), I haven't felt held back by this machine at any point.

However, I can't say I haven't been temped by shiny new things. Every time there's been a new generation of M chip released I wonder what the increase in performance would feel like.

But performance on it's own is unlikely to convince me to upgrade. I usually need three things:

• Some level of base performance. It can't be substantially worse in any area.
• It needs at least one objective improvement. This may be a performance boost.
• Something interesting. A new colour, chassis, display...

itsThe MacBook Neo certainly fits the last point. It's an interesting device, I like the size, the colours, and that it's super cheap and can be used like a travel laptop. But there's no objective reason for this to be an upgrade. It can just stay as an interesting device.

The MacBook Air is also intriguing. I like the 15" model, as I'd get a slightly bigger screen size, and a thinner chassis. Even if it's fan-less, and not a Pro version of an M chip, I think a base M4 chip would perform better than an M1 Pro, so there's an objective improvement. For something interesting,I like the darker grey colour, and I would really like a thinner laptop. But the screen would be a downgrade, so it doesn't meet the first point.

Once I was at this point, I thought I'd check the MacBook Pro. It's the same model, so it definitely meets the base expectations compared to my current laptop. It's the newer model, so objectively every component is better, especially the chip. But it's the same chassis, same colour, same weight... There's nothing particularly interesting about this laptop.

So without anything breaking, or my use case changing, I don't think there's a suitable upgrade available for me. After 4 years.

If I was being negative, I'd say the Neo was rubbish, the Air has a poor display, and the Pro is boring.

But I think the reality is that the base model 14" MacBook Pro with an M1 Pro chip is simply an incredible device. I wonder if after another 4 years, people will still be happily using M1 chips. I suspect so.

One reason I built Miniroll was because I wanted a place to discover new blogs to read. However, even if I added an explore page where you can view a random set of blogrolls and blogs that have been added, it's hard to judge a blog by a name.

But if you could just see a recent blog post, you may be more inclined to have a read.

That's why I've now create the Miniroll Global Feed for Miniroll Pro users..

It regularly goes through each public blogroll and fetches the lastest blog post. Then on the Global page, it will show the 100 most recent blog posts from all of the blogs.

I think it's going to be a better way to help with blog discovery. Personally, I plan on using it when I'm a bit bored and want something to read that doesn't evolve into an infinite social media scrolling session.

There seems to be a very big gap in the capabilities of modern computers compared to the actual use case of the general person. Whether it's a phone, laptop, or any type of technology. Marketing and society seems to tell you that everyone needs to have the best version of everything.

But it's not the case. As for the general person, when they use a computer, they're probably doing a very small set of activities. Most people aren't editing videos, developing software, or doing anything particularly resource intensive.

That's why I've long thought the best (Apple) computer for most people was probably an iPad. You can watch TV/movies, browse the web, play games, read emails, etc. It does everything most people need.

But there's still one "problem". It runs iPadOS. And even as far as it’s come, it’s still not macOS or Windows. So there was always some level of adaptation needed, even if minor. As a lot of paradigms on how computers are used are simply different.

Whereas now, if you want an Apple computer, and you either don’t need to do particularly complex tasks, or you’re on a tight budget, then I don’t think the iPad is the best choice anymore.

It's obviously too early to say this for definite, given it's literally only just been announced. However, I think the MacBook Neo will take that role. It's a modest computer compared to the other options, but it does everything that most people need it to do. It's also at a fantastic price point, which makes a big difference. And it's still a Mac, which brings a sense of quality and status.

I think the Neo will become the Apple computer that will be recommended for people that “just need a computer”.